Interactive C++ Compilation (REPL): The Lean Way

Viktor Kirilov

With 4 years of professional experience with C++ in the games and VFX industries, Viktor currently spends his time writing open source software (since 01.01.2016) - and occasionally doing some contract work. His interests are the making of games and game engines, high performance code, data oriented design, minimizing friction and incorporating good practices in the software development process such as testing and the use of modern tools like static analysis or instrumentation. Viktor is from Sofia, Bulgaria and his profession is his hobby. Personal website: http://onqtam.com/

Ever wanted to modify some value or execute some statement while your C++ program is running just to test something out - not trivial or possible with a debugger? Scripting languages have a REPL (read-eval-print-loop). The closest thing C++ has is cling (developed by researchers at CERN) but it is built on top of LLVM and is very cumbersome to set up.
RCRL (Read-Compile-Run-Loop) is a demo project showcasing an innovative approach to doing runtime C++ compilation in a platform and compiler agnostic way which can be easily embedded. In this presentation we will see how to use it, how it works and how it can be modified and integrated into any application and workflow.